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Thursday, January 1, 2015

Forever is composed of nows ... Happy 2015 to you ALL

An Emily Dickinson quote seems like an odd way to open up a post celebrating 2015 but I intend it to become the motto to which I will live and work in 2015.

December 2014 was a crazy month for me ... especially with regards to my day job ... but also with regards weareallghosts and the application of VAT in the EU.

I won't bore you with the details but the rules on VAT have changed for providers of digital services as at today - instead of VAT within the EU being applicable at the place where the Business resides, it changed to the place where the consumer purchased the 'digital service'. The threshold also no longer applied - in the UK waag needs to make £81k before VAT needs to be considered whereas the new EU VAT rules are applicable from the first £1.

Bandcamp is our main market place with all bar one of our releases on there as 'pay what you want' (they are currently set to 'free' but I'll change that back ASAP) - this option allows our community to support us as / when they desire. Up until recently it looked like I needed to register for VAT so I could use the VAT MOSS (micro one stop shop) channel to pay any VAT that I needed to. As such, a good deal of time (valuable holiday-with-family time) was taken up changing the Bandcamp site and then registering for VAT.

Thankfully Bandcamp had a change of heart and will now take care of any VAT incurred. Whilst this means members of our EU community will have to pay more for their downloads (if they wish to support us) it means I won't be tied up in a VAT mess.

It will also mean that the plans in place for the charity fundraising end-of-year compilation can go ahead and we can put out more professionally mastered music on CDr.

At the end of the day, weareallghosts is a netlabel in the traditional sense ... we will always put music OUT THERE for free on Creative Commons licenses. Some of our releases will cost to buy - these fees will be levied to pay for professional mastering, packaging, and effort incurred - but we remain committed to putting out quality progressive ambient-orientated music for free.

I have a few ideas for weareallghosts in 2015 ...

Keep putting out great music - downloads and, where appropriate, CDrs.

Keep building a vibrant community through Archive, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud using Facebook, Twitter, and the blog.

Update the website - move from a blog format to a portfolio format.

... and look forward to releasing music from Cousin Silas (on his own and in collaboration), Matthew VandenBrook, Kevin Lyons (on his own and in collaboration), Scott Lawlor and others ... as well as the end-of-year compilation which has some serious talent on there!